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Monster Blood Tattoo Wiki:Manual of Style
This is the Manual of Style for the Monster Blood Tattoo Wiki. Unless stated, they must be followed across the wiki, without exceptions. The purpose of a manual of style is to keep all articles on the wiki consistent and organized throughout the wiki and ensure that they are up to an encyclopedic standard. Please read this page carefully and follow the guidelines as closely as possible when editing any page on this wiki. If you would like to suggest changes or additions to these guidelines, please do so on the talk page. Scope All articles and content must conform to the scope. This includes, but is not limited to: *all three books of the trilogy *the side story The Corsers’ Hinge: A Lamplighter Tale and all relevant topics. What the wiki is NOT *A social networking site. Try instead. *A place to advertise products or services of any kind. This extends to user pages and user talk space. *A place for vandalism or test edits. Content or user contributions that fall outside of the scope, including but not limited to what is outlined above, will be deleted. Perspective Articles that deal with in-universe topics should be written in an in-universe perspective as if the Monster Blood Tattoo universe was the real world. These articles include all character, location, monster, and technology articles. Basically, any article that has information that is based around the contents of the site is an in-universe article. Articles that deal with real world subjects, e.g. D. M. Cornish, are a little different. If the subject encompasses other topics that go beyond the scope of its involvement with Monster Blood Tattoo, these can be briefly discussed or a brief general overview can be given, but the primary subject of the article must be the subject's relation to Monster Blood Tattoo. In cases like these it may be helpful to link to the subject's {[w|Wikipedia}} article if a corresponding article exists for further reference. Language The content of this wiki is expressed in British English. American English is permitted, but it is not necessary nor encouraged to change British variations into their American counterpartes. This is an English language wiki and all edits are expected to be made in English, with the exception of content that is named in other languages as determined by the content of the series. This includes articles, forum posts, blogs, and talk pages. If a user's second language is English and they are not apprised of correct grammar and sentence structure, we can only ask that you have someone help you with the content you wish to provide here as editing will be extremely difficult if you cannot properly understand or converse with others in the community. Such edits would likely end up being undone as they cannot be understood. Persistent edits to the wiki in any language other than English may be seen as disruptive. Image use Article titles General guidelines *The formal name of a subject is normally used as opposed to the popular name, e.g. Conduit Vermis instead of Wormway. However if a common or popular name is easier to remember and is most likely to be used, then this is used instead, e.g. fulgar instead of astrapecrith. *All titles are singular by default unless the subject is plural, e.g. vinegar seas. The explicarium listing of listing plural forms of topics is not followed on the wiki for ease of use. Additionally, the reader is generally used to thinking of a topic as singular vs. plural. It is not necessary to create plural versions of a subject and then redirect to them. *Special characters must be included, e.g. the in Rossamünd. *"The" is not included as part of a title for ease of use as there are multiple topics known as "The". For characters *Use full names, e.g. Honorius Ludius Grotius Swill, even though he is most commonly referred to by just his last name. *Avoid the use of honorifics (Mister, etc.) and ranks in the title name, e.g. Crispus, not Doctor Crispus. However where the character is commonly known by a non-honorific as part of their name, e.g. Mama Lieger, this is included. *For peers, their title is not normally used unless they are not named, e.g. Countess Plume. *If a character is known as "of x location", this is included in the article title, e.g. Hero of Clunes. Writing style Use of the Explicarium Tense All in-universe articles, with the exception of those on the works (trilogy, The Corsers' Hinge), should be written in past tense. A caveat to this is when discussing a subject in the lead section of its article if the subject still exists and has not died or been destroyed. Numbers As a general rule, in the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine are spelled out in words; numbers greater than nine are commonly rendered in numerals, or in words if they are expressed in one or two words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This applies to as well as . However there are frequent exceptions to these rules. *In tables and infoboxes, quantitative data is expressed as numerals; numerals will also fit better in limited space. Numbers within a table's explanatory text and comments should be consistent with the general rule. *Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all figures: we may write either 5 cats and 32 dogs or five cats and thirty-two dogs, not five cats and 32 dogs. *Numbers that begin a sentence are spelled out, since using figures risks the period being read as a decimal point or abbreviation mark; it is often better to recast the sentence than to simply change format, which may produce other problems. Dates The HIR dating convention and the 16 month calendar of the Half-Continent are used for all articles on in-universe subjects and where this information can be confirmed. See the Timeline for a chronology of events. Speculation There is a fine line between speculation and what is implied or suggested, but in general if it is not stated or shown and cannot be properly referenced it is not a fact. However, it is clear that many terms and locations that Cornish uses were adapted from actual words and locations: e.g. Parthia is an actual region in . This can be mentioned in the Trivia sections of articles, but must be carefully worded to note the coincidence. Otherwise, refer speculation to the Watercooler. New article creation Before creating a new article, please refer to the Layout guide and follow the relevant layouts outlined there. Manual of Style